The Forgotten One
by Mae Redman
Summary: She's been kept completely secret from everyone, her family, her friends, even herself. But no secret can last when a Potter is involved. DH spoilers.
1. Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder

Rain was pouring in buckets from the steely grey sky. It seemed to Anna, as she raced down the partly flooded street with a copy of _Les Sorcier Nouvelles_ over her head, that the heavens chose quite a time to weep all over her. Icy rain dribbled down the neck of her dress robes and soaked the hem. A car sped by, bathing her in mud and a few choice words concerning her abnormal fashion. _Stupid Muggle_, she thought, and hurried on her way. Since she'd had her Apparating license revoked last month for a particularly painful splinching (it wasn't her fault, really. She was totally stressed and late for work!), she had had to walk to and from work every day. Now, as twilight descended upon her, she reflected angrily that the French Ministry would not let her connect her apartment to the Floo Network. Her best robes, ruined! All because she had to retake that stupid course like a seventeen year old kid.

She rushed up to the front entrance of her apartment building and punched in the code to open the doors, all the while wishing she didn't have to have a Muggle landlord.

"Costume party, Mademoiselle Potter?" asked the desk clerk as she dripped in, trying to hide her sodden newspaper in her robes to prevent him from seeing the moving pictures. She gave him a nasty look and hurried past, feet squelching on the linoleum tiles.

When at last the elevator arrived at her floor (after stopping at what seemed like every floor along the way), she was on the home stretch. She gleefully exited the small box full of staring Muggle eyes and made her way to her door—only to be stopped by a burst of smoke and then total darkness.

It couldn't possibly be that the power had gone out; there were windows scattered around. Anyway, there was a generator or two, and backup lights. Anna drew her wand, hesitated, and then, throwing caution to the wind, whispered "_Lumos_."

It didn't work.


	2. A Few New Neighbors

Anna was just beginning to fight a clawing fear in her belly when the darkness began to dissipate. Somewhere down the hall, a voice shouted, "Victoire!" and something small and red-haired crashed into her and wrapped its arms around her legs.

The child, aged perhaps two or three, stared up at her with large blue eyes from under a mop of untidy, violently red hair. Before she could say anything, however, a scarred man with hair of the same fiery color approached.

"I'm sorry," he said apologetically in faltering French. "My daughter's a bit…er…badly behaved." He unwrapped the girl from around Anna's legs and squatted to be at eye-level. He began speaking to her quickly in English, and Anna, who hadn't spoken the language since she was two years old, could only catch a few words and made sense of very little of it.

Anna stood awkwardly for another moment or two, then headed once more toward her apartment. The attempt did not last long before she tripped over something that immediately disappeared in a cloud of impenetrable darkness.

"What the…" she squinted at it, then looked up as the man exclaimed sharply and muttered another question in English at his daughter. A moment later, he turned on her and drew a wand, still speaking unintelligibly. Anna spared only a moment for surprise before drawing her own wand again and disarming the man before he could hurt her.

"Oh!" he said as his wand flew down the hallway. He glanced at her again, this time taking in the soaking witch's robes and the moving pictures of her newspaper. He cleared his throat. "It's, um…it's called Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder, my brothers own a joke shop in Britain, I don't know how she got it…er. I, ah, thought you were a Muggle, was going to have to, you know, Muggles and all…" He grinned sheepishly at her. "I didn't know we had a neighbor," he finished.

Anna nodded and summoned the man's wand for him. "I'm Anna Potter," she told him.

"Bill Weasley," he replied, shaking her hand. "This is my daughter Victoire."

"Pleased to meet you."

The girl, Victoire, ran forward and hugged her again. She spoke to her father again in English, but this time the words were slow and simple enough for Anna to understand: "I like her. She looks like Harry."

"A bit," Bill agreed, then bid Anna good evening, took his daughter by the hand and walked down the hall to his apartment.

Maybe, if there was more than one wizarding family living in the building, Anna thought, they would connect it to the Floo network. She unlocked her door, her spirits a slight bit less damp than before.


	3. An Old School Friend

"So Anna, where do you work?" asked Fleur as she handed Anna a plate of hot food. The Weasleys had been kind enough to invite her to dinner Saturday night, and Anna, who hadn't eaten a hot meal for a week, gladly obliged.

"I work for Gringotts," she replied, eyeing the food hungrily. She noted that while she and Fleur and Victoire ate mashed potatoes and chicken, Fleur gave Bill a plate of all but uncooked steak. Silently, she stored this bit of information in the back of her mind, but gave no comment.

"Really?" said Bill, looking up from his plate. "So do I! I spent some time in Egypt a few years ago, and now they've moved me here for a while. Where have you been?"

"Oh—it's nothing like that, really. It's not all that exciting. I do paperwork." She blushed slightly at this admission; she sincerely wished she could be doing all the exciting things so many others got to do, but, for now, at least, she had to sit behind a desk and walk home from work.

"Oh," said Bill.

As Fleur sat down to eat, something sparked Anna's memory. She couldn't quite place it, but the woman seemed so familiar. As little Victoire asked her mother something in English, it clicked.

"Delacour!" Anna said suddenly. Fleur glanced around at her. "That was your name, wasn't it?"

Fleur nodded, but still seemed a bit confused.

"You went to Beauxbatons, you were two years ahead of me. You were the champion for our school in the Triwizard Tournament!"

"Yes…hm. Oh, I remember now! Anna Potter, you were always a good student, weren't you? The teachers liked you a lot, as I recall."

Anna smiled slightly. The two of them reminisced about school for a bit, then went on to other things. Anna also remembered that she had never really liked Fleur Delacour in her school days, since she was such a pompous sort; at least she seemed kinder now.


	4. Tea

It was about two weeks after the Darkness Powder incident in the hallway, and Anna and Fleur were talking over tea. Anna was shocked at how well they had gotten along, considering their differences in school. She supposed the maturity added by a few years out of school helped them to become friends, at least.

"Where are you from, Anna? I never knew. You're not from France, are you?" Fleur asked, sipping her tea.

"No, I was born in England. My parents were killed by Voldemort's Death Eaters when I was about two years old, so I was sent to live in France, where it would be safer. Apparently they were indirectly involved with an organization called the Order of the Phoenix, which opposed Voldemort, so they sent me out of the country so I wouldn't be hurt."

"Your parents were in the Order?" Fleur repeated. She had set down her cup, and was staring sharply at Anna.

"Er…well…not exactly, no. They helped them once or twice, but…they weren't exactly members." That part-veela stare, when directed so forcefully at her, made her very uncomfortable.

"What were their names?"

"I'm not…I don't know. I was a foster child…I guess their names were never passed along. Oh—I'm definitely _not_ related to Harry Potter, if that's what you're thinking." She laughed. "I know _that_ for sure."

Fleur only nodded and quickly changed the conversation. "My sister-in-law and her husband are coming to visit next week for Christmas…"


	5. Visitors from Home

"Harry, can you please help me with this thing?" Ginny was glaring at the keypad outside Bill and Fleur's apartment building. Harry, laden with their luggage (and wishing they could have simply used Floo powder to get here), stepped up next to her, dropped the suitcase he was holding, and pressed the button for Bill and Fleur's apartment. Ginny couldn't understand why they were unable to get a place that wasn't swarming with Muggles, at least until she had received a profanely frustrated letter from Bill that said, basically, that they couldn't afford the wizard homes, even to rent.

It was Fleur who buzzed them in. Once inside, Harry again had to show Ginny how to use the elevator. Unlike her father, she was not quite so dangerously obsessed with anything Muggle, so Harry did not have to worry about her insisting on pressing every button on the wall. (A similar incident had occurred just a few months ago, when Harry and Arthur were working briefly together on a case for the Ministry. A very embarrassed Harry had escorted his father-in-law out of the crowded elevator three floors too soon, still trying to think up a believable explanation.)

Halfway down the hall toward Bill and Fleur's apartment, Harry, who was paying more attention to the numbered plaques set on the door, bumped into a black-haired woman hurrying the other way. Harry dropped the suitcase and the woman stumbled and almost fell. Muttering hurried apologies in French, she made as if to continue on her way, then did a double-take.

"Vous êtes Harry Potter, no?" the young woman said in surprise, stopping. There was more than one wizarding family in this building, then.

"Er…" he replied. Not for the first time he wondered if there was a way to remove his telltale scar. "_Oui_," he added uncomfortably. He didn't speak much French, but it wasn't necessary to recognize his own name.

"Pleased to meet you," the woman said in bad English, then: "Voldemort had my parents killed, too." She nodded to him and continued toward the elevator. Ginny gave her a sympathetic look and spotted Bill and Fleur's door.


	6. Christmas

It was Tuesday afternoon, Christmas Day. The Weasleys had been good-hearted enough to invite Anna for Christmas, as she had no family to go to, having been raised in several foster homes till she was seventeen. Still feeling slightly awkward about intruding on the family, she knocked on their door at around four o'clock. Bill let her in, smiling warmly.

Anna was not surprised to see Harry Potter lying on the couch, showing Victoire a piece of old parchment that seemed to move a bit. Bill introduced the red-haired woman as his "sister, Ginny" and Potter as his "brother-in-law Harry." He gave no special importance to their names, as if to keep secret that his brother-in-law was _Les Choisi Une_, the Chosen One who had destroyed Lord Voldemort, the killer of so many, Anna's parents included.. Potter saw her and nodded, said something in English to Bill. Bill answered, then said, in French, to Anna, "You've met?"

"Yes. On Saturday, when they arrived. You didn't tell me you're related to Harry Potter!"

Bill shrugged. "How would you feel to be that way?" he asked her, and she suddenly felt bad.

As one, they all converged around the living room of the little apartment. As conversation emerged, Bill taught Anna a spell that would allow her to speak and understand what was being said in English, as she was the only one who didn't speak the language fluently. She watched Potter mutter a spell at the piece of parchment that had so entertained Victoire before setting the now-blank relic down on the couch.

While they spoke, Anna watched Victoire out of the corner of her eye. The little girl had seemed utterly fascinated with the parchment, and was now trying vainly to discover the secret. With a final frustrated effort, Victoire used her untrained child's magic and set the parchment on fire.

"What—" Anna started, but just then, Potter saw what she was doing. "Victoire, no!" He propelled himself toward the girl and snatched the smoldering parchment from her as if it were the most valuable item in the world. Anna shrugged mentally. She had, after all, heard he was rather unhinged.

Gritting his teeth with a mad look in his eye, Potter put out the fire, repaired the burns, and pointed his wand at his precious trophy. "I solemnly swear I am up to no good," he said, and ink began to spread across the page.

"Hey, I know him," Anna said, pointing at one of the names at the top of the map.


	7. Suppressed Memories

"Padfoot. I know him. Well, knew him, at least." Now everyone was staring at her, as if she was the crazy one. "What?" she said uncomfortably. "He was a friend of my father's."

"You knew Sirius Black?" Potter was staring at her, too, that deranged look still in his eye.

"Wha—no, Sirius Black, the murderer? No. I don't know what his real name is, but—"

"Sirius was not a murderer. Padfoot, this Padfoot right here, he's Sirius Black. How do you think you knew him?"

"I—well—he was there the night my parents died."

"Right," said Potter sarcastically. "Funny. You're Anna Potter, I'm Harry Potter, you think that's all a great joke. That's simply hilarious." The mad glint was gone from his eyes, at least.

"No, really…" Anna whispered. No one seemed to believe her. But she distinctly remembered seeing Padfoot that night…

_Anna was two-and-a-half, a big girl now. She didn't need Mommy to put her to bed, so she went on her own. She was in the bathroom, reaching for her toothbrush, when she heard Daddy yelling. A few seconds later, she heard someone screaming._

"_Mommy?" she whispered, and started to open the door. Just then, a dark shadow crossed the light from the hall, and it seemed colder. Frozen with fright, Anna remained, invisible and below Lord Voldemort's notice. It was only a few seconds after that that she heard Mommy begging. She wanted to protect the baby, but she couldn't do anything to help. Then the explosion came, and all went dark._

_It was a long time before she woke up, but when she did, the whole house was dark. Frightened out of her wits, she managed to make a light appear in front of her, like Mommy and Daddy did with their wands when it was too dark. There was red stuff all over the place, and her head hurt a lot. But she had to get to Mommy._

_As soon as she stepped into the hallway, she realized she wouldn't be able to go near Mommy. The explosion had made the ceiling fall down, and even some of the floor. Instead, she started back downstairs. Maybe Daddy was down there. He would probably be mad at her for coming down so late, but she couldn't get to her bedroom anyway. And her head hurt so much. He would understand._

_There was Daddy, in the hall downstairs. Why was he lying there on the floor? He never let Anna sleep on the floor._

"_Daddy?" she said softly, shaking his shoulder a little to wake him. His glasses were all messed up. They shouldn't be. She straightened them on his nose so he would see straight when he woke up. The floor must be really uncomfortable, she thought, and took his arm to try and drag him to the couch. He was too heavy. "Daddy!" she exclaimed. "Get up, you gotta sleep on the couch!"_

"_Don't, Anna." A hand touched her arm. Anna screamed._

_It was only Padfoot, standing at the door. But why did he look so sad?_

"_Padfoot, help me get Daddy to the couch, the floor's all uncomfy."_

_Padfoot's eyes glistened with tears. "Not now, Anna. Let him sleep."_

"_But…Pad, why's he sleeping on the floor?" Padfoot was upsetting her now. Why was he crying?_

"_Because Wormtail betrayed him," Padfoot said, and his face twisted and got all angry. Anna had never seen him look so angry, so hateful, so murderous in her short life. Suddenly she began to cry. Daddy's best friend picked her up and took her outside, where a giant man stood by Padfoot's motorcycle. The giant man patted Padfoot's arm in comfort, and he was crying, too._

"_I think Harry's still alive, at least. Upstairs. But you get him, Hagrid. I've got something to do," Padfoot told him bitterly, and set Anna down beside the giant man. Then he left and Anna never saw him again. The last thing she remembered was looking up into the giant man's face, then seeing it spin and she started to fall._

Anna's eyes flew open in shock. Never, in all her life, since it actually happened, had she remembered that night with such vividness. Suddenly emotion overwhelmed her and she rushed out of the Weasley's apartment, back to her own home, to her bed, to think.


	8. Blood Relations and Explanations

The next day Anna managed to speak to Harry, though he still didn't quite trust her. She sat down with him and they spoke for a long time. She even took some Veritaserum in her tea to prove she wasn't lying. At long last, she knew she had him convinced.

"But why didn't Sirius tell me I had a sister?" Harry asked for the fifteenth time, pacing around Anna's kitchen. Ginny—Anna's sister-in-law—shook her head in bewilderment.

"Maybe he thought I was dead. Maybe he didn't want to burden you with a dead sister to think about, too," Anna ventured. Harry pondered this for a moment.

"Yes, but why…why didn't Dumbledore send you to live with the Dursleys, too? I mean…he had to have known. If you were with Hagrid…it was probably Dumbledore who sent you to France in the first place!"

"Well…why did you have to live with the Dursleys? Wasn't it horrible there anyway?"

"Pretty awful," Harry agreed. "Apparently it was because Aunt Petunia carries Lily's blood and that was the only way to protect me, since she died for me and all…Maybe he wanted to spare you that? But he couldn't have known they would be so putrid. So…why?"

"I'm sure," Ginny began, "it was another of Dumbledore's perfect plots. And we'll probably never know. He never told anyone anything, right? So you can't have expected him to tell you that you had a long-lost sister in France."

"Yeah, but why didn't Remus tell me? Hagrid? He must have known. Or even Wormtail? 'I didn't mean to kill your parents or your sister, Harry…' Why didn't _anyone_ ever tell me?" He now seemed utterly frustrated. Then suddenly he added, "Why are there no pictures of you?"

"Because the house was destroyed."

"Yeah, but I've got all sorts of pictures of my parents. From other people." He gave her a suspicious look.

"But few pictures of you, Harry, except that one you found at Grimmauld Place." Ginny shrugged. "She's right. Probably everything was destroyed in the explosion. And Hagrid? …He would do anything Dumbledore told him to. Even keep your own sister secret. Maybe keeping Anna secret from you, even from herself would keep her safe. Otherwise…"

"Who knows how many Death Eaters would be after me?" Anna finished.

Ginny nodded. Harry shrugged.


	9. A Test, a Songbird and an Owl

Even with rain sheeting down outside the windows, Anna could not help but think that it was gloriously beautiful. About an hour ago, when she had come into the waiting room dripping and cursing, it had been quite ugly…but now she could Apparate! Grinning widely, she turned slightly, and Disapparated instantly from the spot.

A songbird sheltering from the rain on her windowsill took off with a squawk of indignation as she Apparated into her apartment with a loud crack. At first Anna thought it was the noise that had sent the bird flying—but then she saw a shadow, quickly followed by a large brown owl swooping onto the sill. It scraped its talons against the panes and hooted persistently until she opened the window (devoid of a screen for exactly this purpose) and let the owl in.

It carried a letter written in a hand she had never seen before. As she peered at it, she realized suddenly that it was from her brother and immediately began to read. Some news, with much explanation about each piece and why he was sharing it—a lifetime never having known anything in the other's life made it hard for the siblings to communicate—and an invitation to come visit Harry and Ginny in England in April.

It was the first letter she had ever received from anyone like family in her life. She grinned as she gave food and water to the owl and began to write her reply.


End file.
